An interactive whiteboard (IWB) includes a display or a projector, a coordinate detection device that detects an input operation of an input object with reference to the display plane thereof and a computer that controls drawing processing based on the detected input operation and an operation of the overall system.
The coordinate detection device may be of a type detecting a position (contact position) where a predetermined or any input object directly touches the display plane or of a type optically detecting a position (operation position) where an input object enters a virtual detection plane set within a range of a few centimeters from the display plane. A typical example of the former type may be a touch panel, and a typical example of the latter type may be an infrared coordinate detection device. The coordinate detection device outputs a detected position as two-dimensional coordinates on the display screen. The computer converts the two-dimensional coordinates of the coordinate detection device into two-dimensional coordinates on an operating screen of the computer and draws an image on the operating screen of the computer as an object having a color and a thickness designated beforehand. Such an operating screen of the computer is provided to a user as the display plane of the display or the projector.
The interactive whiteboard (IWB) repeats the processing from the detection of coordinates by the coordinate detection device to the drawing on the operating screen of the computer several tens of times per second, thus providing a user an experience as if an operator directly wrote a text or a figure using the input object on the operating screen of the computer. In the case of interactive whiteboard (IWB) equipped with a function of processing an input operation using an input object equal to the operation using a mouse connected to a computer, the computer can be operated through the input operation of the input object with reference to the display plane.
Among the interactive whiteboards (IWBs), a system including a display plane of an operating screen of a computer integral with a coordinate detection device is called a touch panel type. Whereas, a system configured to project an operating screen of a computer to a coordinate detection plane via a projector connected to the computer is called a projection type. Another interactive whiteboard (IWB) available is configured to display an operating screen of a computer on a display plane of a not-projection type display connected to the computer and arranging an optically formed detection plane of a coordinate detection device in front side of the display plane.